Al Jazeera -- news or mouthpiece?

October 15, 2001|By T. Christian Miller. Special to the Tribune. T. Christian Miller is a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune newspaper.

DOHA, Qatar — Hamad ibn Thamer al Thani is under attack. The White House has accused him of potentially spreading terrorism. Many Islamic leaders won't talk to him. But the satellite television network he runs, Al Jazeera, has an audience estimated at 35 million and growing. ABC visited this week, hoping to forge a relationship. And Hamad is making more than $250,000 each time he sells a three-minute Osama bin Laden clip.

This is a front line of the war against terrorism. In the Arab world, information has become a valued weapon. "All these accusations are proof that we are trying to be professionals and do our job the best way we can," Hamad said at a news conference Thursday at which he defiantly dismissed U.S. demands to tone down Al Jazeera's coverage, including statements by bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network. "If we have faults, we try to correct them."

The network's programming emanates from a small blue and white building sitting on the barren moonscape of Doha, the capital of Qatar, one of the smallest of the Persian Gulf States. When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak saw the building recently, he snorted, saying, "You mean to tell me that all this trouble comes from this matchbox?"

His choice of words was apt, because Al Jazeera has sparked a blaze of controversy. On the air since 1996, it provided Muslims their first glimpse of the daily thump and grind of Arab life -- warts and all. The station was the first to offer extended debates over typically taboo topics such as polygamy and women's rights. It was the first to feature interviews with top Jewish leaders. The pieces angered Arab leaders, who were accustomed to tight control over state media. Egypt was so angry at one broadcast, it expelled a newscaster's brother.

But more than anything, Al Jazeera gained fame for its graphic and frequent depictions of the intifada, the year-old clash between Palestinians and Israelis that has galvanized the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.

"It's an amazing channel," said Khalid ibn Jaber al Thani, a member of the country's ruling family. "You get to know what you want to know."

But that, according to U.S. officials, is too much, especially now, in the middle of a war. During a recent state visit, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell asked Sheik Hamad ibn Khalifa al Thani, Qatar's emir and Al Jazeera's owner, to "tone down" the coverage. The language grew stronger last week, when National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice told U.S. network executives that bin Laden might be using Al Jazeera to transmit coded messages to terrorist cells. Al Jazeera can be seen in the United States with some satellite systems.

The confrontation grew out of Al Jazeera's special relationship with bin Laden. The network conducted an extensive interview with the Saudi militant in 1998, one it broadcast three times in one day shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, angering U.S. officials. Further, as the only television network with an office in Kabul, the Afghan capital -- despite the Taliban's ban on television -- it has received exclusive footage or messages from bin Laden three times since the attacks.

U.S. government officials acknowledge that they're actively trying to alter Al Jazeera's editorial content. So far, Al Jazeera has resisted any entreaties to change, although the complaints come at a delicate time. The network's five-year, $150-million government grant runs out at the end of the month. That means the network must raise its own money to continue. Facing a commercial boycott encouraged by Arab leaders in other countries, it has gotten a big funding boost from one of its most lucrative products -- the bin Laden videos.

Mohammed Jasem al Ali, Al Jazeera's managing director, said he has charged as much as $250,000 for a three-minute clip from the 1998 bin Laden interview. He would not say how much he has charged CNN and other media outlets for the right to the most recent clips, although he said it was less than $1 million. "We're making good money," he said, smiling.